The Obituary Writer (Thorndike Press Large Print Peer Picks) - Hardcover

Ann Hood is the author of the best-selling novels The Book That Matters Most, The Knitting Circle, The Red Thread, The Obituary Writer, and Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

The Obituary Writer is a really engrossing book, drawing you in literally from page one. Using well-chosen and grounding details... Ann Hood gives us two women from very different time periods who share similar struggles in understanding aspects of love and grief. One of the things I admire most about this graceful and intimate writer is her literary sleight of hand: you don't so much read about her characters as you inhabit them. Reading this book, I felt acutely the sadness of loss, the deliciousness of gossip among a group of women friends, the frustration of miscommunication in marriage, the joys of sensuality. Creating such empathy on the part of a reader isn't easy: Ann Hood just makes it look that way. That's a gift, and we readers are the lucky recipients. --Elizabeth Berg author of "The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted" and "Tapestry of Fortunes"

It is a rare novelist who can summon the creative nerve to plumb the depths of grief, but that's just what Ann Hood does here with such compassion and grace. The Obituary Writer is an unflinching exploration of loss and the love that somehow remains, one that both wounds and heals. This is a deeply engaging and moving book. --Andre Dubus III, author of "Townie"

In this poignant and incisive novel, Ann Hood brings history back to life in the most intimate way, chronicling the love affairs and heartbreaks of two very different women in two very different times. Moving gracefully and persuasively between post-earthquake San Francisco and the early 1960s, The Obituary Writer makes unexpected connections between these two bygone eras, and in the process, manages to illuminate the present as well as the past. --Tom Perrotta, author of "The Leftovers"

The Obituary Writer is an engrossing book, drawing you in from page one. I admire this graceful and intimate writer for her literary sleight of hand: you don't so much read about her characters as you inhabit them. Reading this book, I felt acutely the sadness of loss, the deliciousness of gossip among a group of women friends, the frustration of miscommunication in marriage, the joys of sensuality. Creating such empathy on the part of a reader isn't easy: Ann Hood just makes it look that way. That's a gift, and we readers are the lucky recipients. --Elizabeth Berg author of "The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted" and "Tapestry of Fortunes"